All this cliff’ talk has pundit on edge

I can’t remember when I’ve been quite as sick of a catchphrase as I am right now about “the fiscal cliff.”

Hey, I know the national debt is a serious matter, and even by the end of this column if I’m lucky enough to get you that far, it will have grown by another $5 million, give or take. But why is it that we can’t ever seem to have a crisis in this country without giving it a nickname that gets repeated over and over, ad nauseam, as if it were some kind of trendy new household product?

“Party leaders meet to stave off the fiscal cliff, details at 6,” proclaims a teaser crawl on the TV news. “Holidays Marred by Conflict Over Fiscal Cliff,” a newspaper headline chips in. “Our panel of experts will debate the views of congressional foes as the nation heads for the fiscal cliff,” a cable network announces breathlessly.

Just what we needed after a couple of years of vitriolic wrangling and record-breaking campaign spending over who should be elected president.

Now they’ve got us heading hellbent for a cliff yet.

I always used to think of cliffs as nice things. Remember the words to the World War II song that kept hopes alive in the ’40s? “There’ll be bluebirds over the white cliffs of Dover tomorrow, just you wait and see. There’ll be love and laughter and peace ever after tomorrow, when the world is free. The shepherd will tend his sheep, the valley will bloom again, and Jimmy will go to sleep in his own little room again …”

Love, laughter and peace ever after proved to be a bit of a mirage, but cliffs still held a soft spot in my consciousness when I used to go to the movies as a youngster and habitually attended Saturday afternoon matinees that always included an adventure-serial chapter. The good guy was often imperiled at the edge of a cliff as one chapter ended, so we felt compelled to see him get out of his fix in the next episode.

Cliffs held no terror for us in those days because our hero always knew how to handle them. Much of that changed when I watched the film “Thelma and Louise” in the ’90s. The title ladies, bank robbers, found their car trapped by police in the climactic scene with only a cliff ahead. They made a snap decision to — well, maybe you haven’t seen it, and I don’t want to play spoiler. But cliffs took on a new meaning for me after that one, I have to say that.

The country got through the Great Depression without a catchy buzz phrase like the fiscal cliff. Opening day of that era came to be known later as Black Friday, a calamitous moment in our history. Today, of course, most people think of Black Friday as a day to get expensive merchandise for dollars off. If we’re willing to go into the marketplace right after Thanksgiving and risk being trampled by hordes of bargain-hunters, few of whom probably ever heard of the old but significantly more perilous Black Friday.

As for “the fiscal cliff,” I’ll be grateful when it’s over — if only because we won’t have to hear about it every bleeping 15 minutes. And who knows? Maybe once we get through it we’ll have love and laughter and peace ever after. And even a bluebird or two. Just don’t put any money on it.

Remember, we’re down $5 million just since you started this opus — $6 to $7 million if you’re a slow reader.